Financial education in Brazil in 2019: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Financial education is an essential competency for individuals who are embedded in an increasingly complex financial landscape. Thus, the present article will have as general objective analyze the influence of the present structures of the society in the conditioning of the individuals for social progress, through financial education. The elaboration of the educational proposals served, historically, to diverse contexts in Brazil. Financial education, in the sense proposed, would come to reconcile the objectification of happiness to the elaboration of strategies of material satisfaction by individuals. This need arises from the increasing demand that manifests itself in the steps that each individual advances in becoming an autonomous productive unit in the knowledge society, but also manages human capital as well as the association of this to the other types of capital, such as physical and financial. Educating financially the new generations sounds complex in a reality that historically and culturally has no appreciation or commitment to this essential element for the material well-being of a society. In this case, since financial education is a compulsory subject in schools, there is an opportunity to revert this picture more actively. However, the teaching of this subject has only recently been incorporated and, in this field, the few initiatives still do not seem sufficient enough to significantly impact a problem that has gone beyond generations.